Day 32- Open house!

What a great open house! Nice weather, the house was sparkling, and we had a lot of visitors. I'm guessing we had 15-20 people/groups come through. Many first-time home buyers. We haven't even posted interior pictures on the MLS yet, so that was really a good turn out. Now we just have to sit back and wait to see how it goes.

My friend and photographer, Jenn Dworek came to get some "after" shots that turned out amazing. You can check out her blog at http://www.jenniferdworek.blogspot.com/

Let those contracts start rolling in!

Day 31

Ok, so here's one thing I always forget about our houses. The last week becomes a crazy, mad rush to get everything done before open house! Our house (at home) is a mess, we've all been eating fast food because no one has time to get groceries, and I have a huge mountain of laundry waiting for me. But.... such a good feeling because we ARE ready for the open house tomorrow!

The kitchen looks amazing, the wood floors cleaned up beautifully, and it's going to be a perfect home for someone. Suzanne (our realtor) has had some calls about the house, and we haven't allowed any showings until tomorrow, because the place was still a work zone. We're hoping to have a nice turn out. Randy and I always stay for the first open house. We invite the neighbors and our friends to come in and see what we've done. It's nice too, because by this time, we know the house inside and out and can answer any questions that may come up.

People often ask us why we use a realtor instead of trying to sell it ourselves. We have never really considered that as an option. We are so glad when we're done with a project, and we're ready to step back and let Suzanne do her job. Our new listing immediately goes into the MLS system and is automatically sent out to buyers as well as other realtors. Another reason is that as soon as we finish a house, we are out searching for another one, and we're able to concentrate on that house. I think we've become smart enough to do the things we do best, and call in the professionals when we need to.

I took these pictures at 10:00 tonight, so they're not great, but I wanted to get some posted. My friend and photographer, Jenn Dworek is coming Monday for the real photo-shoot.

Off to bed now..... wish us luck!

Day 26

So here's our new kitchen floor. It didn't go quite as smooth as we had hoped, but we were able to figure it out as we went along. First problem was we realized that if we put the floor down, we wouldn't be able to open the back door! There was about 8 layers of old linoleum and sub-floor already down. We attempted to get it up, but it was so glued and nailed down we gave up pretty quickly. Normally we would just cut the bottom of the door to fit, but this is a metal door. After calling my dad and brother-in-law for advice, we decided to take the door off and put the floor in and then decide what to do. Worst case, we'd have to buy a new wooden door and cut that down.

The floor is a laminate and comes in planks about a foot wide. It snapped together, but it took awhile to get the hang of it. My dad ended up bringing a saw blade that would cut metal and after a lot of sparks and smoke, he got the bottom of the door cut. We brought the kitchen cabinets in today, but will actually install them and the counter-tops tomorrow.

The guys from Lakefront Flooring came today and got the padding for the carpet put in. Tomorrow they'll be back to install the carpet. Then I'll spend a good part of the day touching up paint on all the trim upstairs. I also need to start moving all the extra tools, ladders, and paint out of the house and either take them home or put them in the garage. Because we have such a huge garage this time, we've been putting all the trash out there and we'll have someone come and haul it away. Usually we rent a dumpster, but they're not cheap and we always seem to fill it too quickly.

Day 24

We listed our house today! Suzanne said that if we wanted to have the open house on the 17th, we needed to get it listed right away. The only picture I would let her take was an outside picture- the inside is not quite "photo ready" yet. As soon as I hung up the phone with her, I raced outside and painted the front steps for the picture ( we'd been waiting because the steps always get dirty if we paint too soon). We decided to list it at $79,900. It has 3 beds, 1 bath, and a house up the street just sold for $89,900, but we wanted to price it to sell right away, no haggling about the price. We would really like to start another one while the weather is nice, so hopefully this one will sell quickly. Suzanne has been really busy with first-time home buyers, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. One of our houses sold to the first people at the first open house, while another one took 3 months, so you can never be sure.










Here's the bathroom before and after pics of the ceramic tile Randy put down. The vinyl that was in here was in pretty good shape, we just wanted it to look a little more updated.









New windows came today!!! What a difference that makes. I love the idea of the big, wooden original windows, but the vinyl ones are much more energy efficient, and just look so clean! The guys from Window World did a great job and were in and out quickly.





So, here's how the kitchen looks today. Basically a week before the open house. The walls and ceiling are primered. Next, everything will get painted, and then we start on the floor. This last week is always the time that we rush around trying to get it all together, but we always manage to pull it off.

Now....... we just need to put in kitchen floor, paint and install cabinets, paint dining room, hang all light fixtures, finish wood floors, carpet, and stage- is that all?!

Day 21

Although I spent the weekend working at a staging job in Harborcreek, work continued at the house on Cascade.

The guys from Syracuse Glass came and put four new glass block windows in the basement. They make such a difference in the amount of light in the basement, and they have these cute little vents in them!

Randy ended up doing the bathroom ceramic tile all on his own. I had hoped to help, but he didn't need me- he did a great job. I'll put after pictures in the next post when the toilet is back in.

My dad has been patching the kitchen and getting it ready to paint for Friday so we can get in their over the weekend and put in the kitchen floor. We're going to try a laminate flooring that looks like ceramic tile, but shouldn't be as cold on bare feet. You can lay it in one day and be done and not have to wait to come back and grout. We put in a wood laminate floor in one of our other houses, but it was much thinner and harder to get in. We're hoping this one will go much better.

Today I did a lot of little jobs. I painted the hallway going up to the attic, painted the linen closet, and ripped the yucky "fake grass" carpet off the back steps. Tomorrow if it's not raining, I'm going to work on sanding the glue off these steps and painting them.

Day 17

What a week!

Everything seems to be going as scheduled. Upstairs, the bedrooms have all been painted. We're just waiting for the new windows (this week) and carpet (next week). For some reason, none of the rooms had trim around the doors, so Randy's been adding trim.

I am helping a couple in Harborcreek get their home ready to put up for sale, so I will be at their house painting and staging all weekend. Randy is going to start working on the ceramic tile in the bathroom at the "flip house".

Adam, our plumber, has the kitchen all plumbed in, so we'll go next week to get kitchen cabinets. We left the upper cabinets on the wall and painted them, so we're going to buy unfinished base cabinets so we can paint them to match.

This is always the time in a project where I start to get really anxious- I can't wait to see the finished product! In my head, I already know what it will look like, but now that it's starting to transform, I want it done!

Have a good weekend!